The far-right British National Party is set to lose the right to an election broadcast as it cannot find enough parliamentary candidates, an anti-fascist group has claimed. Hope Not Hate, which has campaigned against the BNP since its inception in 2004, today said the racist party would fall way short of the 89 candidates needed to qualify for airtime. The BBC Trust announced that a political party needs to be contesting at least 89 seats in England, 10 in Scotland, seven in Wales or three in Northern Ireland in order to get a party election broadcast. In 2010, the BNP stood 338 candidates across the UK, with its best result coming in the London seat of Barking where the then-leader Nick Griffin finished third.

Duncan Cahill, a researcher for Hope Not Hate, said “there’s no chance” of BNP putting up 89 candidates for May’s General Election. He said: “That was five years ago, now they have only got 471 members. “There’s no far right party in this country that will be able to put up 89 candidates.” The BNP reached its high point at the end of the last decade, with two members elected to the European Parliament, a seat on the London Assembly and more than fifty local council seats. Mr Griffin even appeared on BBC’s flagship discussion show Question Time, a move which prompted mass protests amid claims the party’s views were being “legitimised”.

When Nick Griffin became leader of the British National Party seven years ago, he told his followers to break their addiction to what he called the Three Hs – hard talk, hobbyism and Hitler. What he meant was: be careful about racist language, violence, Holocaust denial or Nazi-worship. Since then, Griffin has toiled tirelessly to transform the image of the party. Out went the number one haircuts and Doc Martens, in came suits, silk ties and sensible shoes. Out too went the foul-mouthed vitriol and swinging fists, replaced with press releases, soundbites and Newsnight appearances. Yet despite the seven years of repackaging, it is impossible to miss the racism. Xenophobia oozes from every pronouncement of the party and its leaders, on paper, on the internet and in person.

The BNP has abandoned words such as “black” and “white”, and even “race”, but still talks of “ethno-nationalism” or “socio-biology”. The party talks about “the indigenous peoples of these islands in the North Atlantic which have been our homeland for millennia”. And its officials rarely miss an opportunity to promote fear and loathing of Islam. Still the makeover is attractive to increasing numbers of people. In 2004, at the last European elections, 808,200 voted BNP. In last May’s local elections the party won 229,000 votes and now has more than 50 council seats. Its leaders seriously believe they can gain a foothold on the Greater London Assembly, and that they will soon capture their first Westminster seat. It is also gaining significant numbers of new members.

A British National Party member and former Stoke-on-Trent councillor has been found guilty of racism charges. Michael Coleman, 45, of Caverswall Road, Weston Coyney, had denied two counts of racially aggravated harassment. The charges related to racist language used in two articles on his website between 8 August 2011 and 8 March 2012. He will re-appear at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court to be sentenced on 28 September.

Jack Straw [on Winston Churchill being ‘hijacked by the BNP’]: “It’s certainly not fair and one of the extraordinary things about the second world war and the first world war is not only that we fought Nazism in the second world war and defeated it, a party and an ideology based on race just like another party represented here based on race fundamental to its constitution and it’s that difference by the way, the fact that the BNP defines itself on race which distinguishes it from any other political party I can think of. “We only won the first World War and only won the Second World War because we were joined in those wars by millions of black and Asian people from around the world.”

Nick Griffin: “I say that Churchill would belong in the British National Party because no other party would have him what he said in the early days on mass immigration into this country, or the fact that ‘they’re only coming for our benefit system’ and for the fact that in his younger days he was extremely critical of the dangers of fundamentalist slam in a way which would now be described as Islamophobic. I believe that the whole of the effort of the second world war and the first was designed to protect British sovereignty, British freedom which Jack Straw’s government are now giving away lock stock and barrel to the EU and to prevent this country being invaded by foreigners. Finally my father was in the RAF during the second WW while Mr Straw’s father was in prison for refusing to fight Adolf Hitler. “Mr Straw was attacking me and I’ve been relentlessly attack over the last few days, my father was in the RAF during the second World War, I am not a Nazi. I never have been.”

A senior member of the BNP who burned a copy of the Qur’an in his garden has been arrested following an investigation by the Observer. Footage of the burning shows Sion Owens, 40, from south Wales and a candidate for the forthcoming Welsh Assembly elections, soaking the Qur’an in kerosene and setting fire to it. A video clip of the act, leaked to the Observer and passed immediately to South Wales police, provoked fierce criticism from the government. A statement from the Home Office said: “The government absolutely condemns the burning of the Qur’an. It is fundamentally offensive to the values of our pluralist and tolerant society.

“We equally condemn any attempts to create divisions between communities and are committed to ensuring that everyone has the freedom to live their lives free from fear of targeted hostility or harassment on the grounds of a particular characteristic, such as religion.” Owens, who has previously stood for a council seat, was last Tuesday unveiled by the BNP as a candidate for next month’s assembly elections. Several photographs place him alongside party leader Nick Griffin, including one showing the pair embracing during a party conference.

The footage comes at a time of heightened tensions. Internationally, protests continued in Afghanistan last week against the recent Qur’an burning by the US pastor Terry Jones in his Florida church. Jones’s act triggered a wave of global violence that nine days ago led to protesters storming a UN Afghan compound, killing three UN staff members and four Nepalese guards. Police had feared that far-right British extremists might attempt to stir tensions here by replicating Jones’s stunt.

Superintendent Phil Davies of South Wales police, who led the investigation, said: “We always adopt an extremely robust approach to allegations of this sort and find this sort of intolerance unacceptable in our society.” Owens was arrested within hours of police receiving the video. A second person, believed to have filmed the Qur’an burning, is also in police custody. It is unclear when the incident took place, but the five-minute footage is already understood to have been circulated to extremists. There is no evidence that Griffin was aware of the film.

A BNP candidate for next month’s Welsh assembly elections has been charged with a public order offence, after police were passed a video appearing to show him burning a copy of the Koran. Sion Owens, 41, was named as a party candidate for the South Wales West regional list last week. He is due to appear at Swansea magistrates’ court on Monday. A second BNP election candidate has been arrested in connection with the incident, and released on bail.

A BNP spokesperson said both would still be candidates in the assembly election on 5 May. On Friday, police were given a video which appeared to show Mr Owens dousing a copy of the Koran with a highly flammable fluid, before setting it alight and watching it burn. Later that day he and another of the party’s candidates for the assembly election, Swansea East candidate Joanne Shannon, were arrested. Mr Owens was charged on Saturday night. He is in custody in Swansea, and due to appear in court on Monday. Ms Shannon has been bailed pending further inquiries.

The British National party faces having some or all of its assets seized in the high court today as part of a showdown with the equality and human rights watchdog. Party leader Nick Griffin had been due to appear alongside two of the BNP’s senior officials in the latest instalment of a legal battle that began last year when the BNP was ordered to remove a clause from its constitution banning non-white members. But Griffin did not turn up for the hearing because he was unwell, although it was thought the court case was likely to proceed in his absence.

Griffin redrafted the BNP constitution again, something the party’s rules allow him to do without consulting members. But the new version showed that the offending clauses had been slightly amended rather than removed. Griffin, whose party is already mired in debt, faces a large financial penalty or even jail if the court rules in favour of the equality watchdog, which is bringing the case. The hearing comes amid a series of setbacks for the BNP, which has been beset by infighting and resignations since its poor performance in May’s general and local elections. In September, its sole representative on the London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook, became the latest figure to split publicly with Griffin when he was expelled by the party.

The British National Party is to be taken to court by the Government’s equalities watchdog for refusing to change rules that bar membership to blacks, Asians and Jews. The Equality and Human Rights Commission launched the legal action because it suspects that the BNP’s constitution and membership criteria, which limits membership to ethnic groups emanating from the “indigenous Caucasian” race, break the Race Relations Act. The BNP leader, Nick Griffin, and two other party officials are named in the county court proceedings, which begin in London next week. Harriet Harman, the Equalities Minister, welcomed the legal action, saying: “No party should be allowed to have an apartheid constitution in 21st- century Britain.”

The commission wrote to the BNP two months ago, raising its concerns about the potential legal breaches and stating that it believed the BNP’s rules would “continue to discriminate against potential or actual members on racial grounds”, despite a pledge from the party to clarify the word “white” on its website. “They cannot beat us through the democratic process, so they are trying the legal process as an alternative.” Mr Darby said the party leadership could not change the rules without the consent of its members, who overwhelmingly wanted the current restrictions to stay in place.

Thanks to the BBC, tonight the British public will be able to make up their own minds about Nick Griffin, chairman of the British National Party and North West England MEP. Viewing figures for this evening’s Question Time should be high: there will be blood, metaphorically speaking. But in 60 painful minutes – if host David Dimbleby keeps order – Griffin will probably duck the killer questions: he will not self-implode before our eyes. More likely, by twist and turn, Griffin will emerge intact. His party and his views will gain immense free publicity; his own infamy will be further guaranteed. He will see it as mission accomplished. Arguably, this is the price we all pay for democracy – although many believe the BBC has needlessly handed him a priceless coup. But away from the television spotlight, who is Griffin? What does he say when his guard is down? And how do those closest to him – past and present – speak of the man?

In my research for his unauthorised biography, I accumulated 20 hours of videotaped interviews with Griffin, and many more with his wife, children, parents, minders, political opponents, senior BNP figures and the National Front leaders who shaped his views: John Tyndall and Martin Webster. Griffin emerges as more than just an odious racist. Yes, he is clever, cunning and capable of delivering his racism through carefully articulated argument. But he is also dangerous and deranged – a man whose personal Utopia is for every white Briton to embrace national socialism, Griffin-style, and for every non-white Briton to leave these islands. The BNP accumulated nearly a million votes in the 2009 Euro elections, partly by exploiting Winston Churchill’s memory. But when I asked Griffin if he admired or respected Churchill, he responded curtly: ‘Not particularly, no.’

Darren Wells was a senior figure within the extreme far right group Combat 18 from 1994 to 2001. But for the last two years, he has been informing on his former friends. Wells became disillusioned with the far right in 1999 after a friend was killed in an internal feud. Wells said, “I decided to get out before I completely ruined my life.” He has been working for the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight for the last two years. Wells gave an exclusive interview to Panorama before leaving the country to start a new life. He said, “I knew that I would either end up dead or be in prison for the rest of my life. I also began to realise the stupidity of what I was involved in.” His involvement in far right activities began in 1994 through his association with football hooliganism with the infamous Chelsea Headhunters.

He attended several Loyalist street activities before getting involved in Combat 18. He described the organisation as fundamentally neo-nazi, its principles based on fascism. Combat 18 takes its name from the first and eighth letters of the alphabet – A and H, the initials for Adolf Hitler. Throughout the 1990’s Combat 18 was associated with acts of terrorism and violence including arson attacks. Wells said, “I still believe some of the things I used to believe in, but I now realise that you can’t go around hurting innocent people.”

The BNP look set to win a seat at Barking and Dagenham which could pave the way for a BNP member of Parliament. This would present very real dangers for people of Barking and Dagenham if they decide on the 6tm May to give their vote to the BNP who have proven links with Combat 18, The National Front and share simular views with the KKK (Klu Klux Klan).

The BNP are presenting for the Dagenham seat their leader Nick Griffen who is also in the European Parliament. Since Mr Griffen will be spending a majority of his time in Europe the people of Barking and Dagenham should be aware that should Griffen be elected then the people of Barking and Dagenham will find themselves short of proper representation.

At present the BNP do hold seats within the council as its official opposition and during the last year the BNP had voted against a law aimed at preventing children from getting knifes. Furthermore, the BNP official for Dagenham made false statements relating to crime within the area. With this and all the BNP stand for along with their senior members who all have criminal records why would anyone trust the BNP?

Whatever the outcome from the 6th May election’s one thing should remain very clear. If the BNP do gain power in Barking and Dagenham those elected representatives will have a duty to uphold the law and treat all residents of Barking and Dagenham with equal respect.